Crafting a home in deteriorated housing. Exploring the Renovations Processes of the Peterbos Social Estate in Brussels

Housing is conceptualized as an enclosed and protected space, from the point of view of its socio-spatial porosity. The dwelling is defined as an enclosed space where the private sphere dominates, protected from the ordeal of coexistence; it is a space conceived cut off from the outside world. However, dwelling is porous to its surroundings, offering a series of thresholds. This tension between the dwelling and the public realm is regulated by intermediate spaces that ensure the gradation between inside and outside, between the private and the public. However, our research, carried out in a Brussels social housing site, forces us to question this socio-spatial quality of porosity and the absence thereof associated to housing. In the case of the Peterbos in Anderlecht, it is the very concrete constitution of the dwelling that challenges the possible social porosity of the dwelling, through inherent defaults of the building (dilapidated pipes, water leaks, noise, smells, mice and larvae...). On the other hand, the in between spaces do not facilitate movement from inside to outside: this movement is impeded (i.e., filthy staircases and entrance halls), blocked (defective elevators) or reversed (the outside world coming in, i.e. when intruders invite themselves into the buildings). Faced with these different problems, the research attempts to analyse the tactics and practices adopted by inhabitants to repair malfunctions and deal with the ordinary problems they encounter daily.